


Don't Stop Me Now

by CloudAtlas



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dare, F/M, Meddling Friends, Ridiculous Dumb Kids, Sam Wilson has Great Taste in Music, Scheming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-20 18:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4798496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>After three years of rooming with Steve Rogers, Clint has discovered that the best thing about him is how he is absolutely, pathologically, unable to turn down a dare.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Wherein Clint and all his friends take to meddling in Steve's love life because they're terrible people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Stop Me Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hotokichan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotokichan/gifts).



> You basically asked for "Steve and fluff" and that's not something that comes naturally to me, so I hope this works for you.
> 
> Thank you to **gecko** for beta. Title thanks to Queen.

After three years of rooming with Steve Rogers, Clint has discovered that the best thing about him is how he is absolutely, pathologically, unable to turn down a dare.

Or maybe, that isn't quite right. Steve turns down dares all the time. If Natasha says, 'I dare you to ask out Sharon from your Tactical Analysis course', he'll say no. If Sam says 'I dare you to order a coffee for Aragorn son of Arathorn', Steve'll roll his eyes and say no. If Pepper says 'I dare you to play strip poker with the guys so us ladies can letch on you all' Steve will definitely say no.

Just, if Clint follows up Natasha's dare with a snort and a 'yeah like he's have the courage, have you seen her? She's a knockout' Steve will do a squinty affronted face and ask her out during their next class. If Clint follows up Sam's dare with 'Steve doesn't even know who that  _is_  Sam, Jesus' Steve will glare and when his order is called he'll yell 'For Gondor!' and Clint will be the only one with it enough to yell 'For Gondor!' back. And if Clint follows up Pepper's dare with 'He's just scared we'll put him to shame' Steve'll set his jaw stubbornly, say 'not fucking likely' and then slowly turn redder and redder as he loses clothes while Natasha, Pepper, Jane and didn't-actually-work-out-ex Sharon catcall from the side-lines.

So yeah, maybe 'unable to turn down a dare' is wrong. Maybe 'stubborn as a mule and loves proving you wrong' is more accurate.

 

"My cousin is coming over from the UK for the semester," Sharon says as she drops into the seat between Sam and Thor. "Mom just told me she’s managed to finalise everything. She'll take Carol's old room."

"Aw, I was going to turn it into an indoor archery range," Clint mumbles around his sandwich and Natasha turns in his lap to glare at him.   
  
"What? It's just the right shape for an archery range!"

Natasha rolls her eyes. "If you spit sandwich onto my shirt I will kill you with a spoon."

"Promises, promises," Clint says, swallowing his mouthful before sticking his tongue out to prove the food's gone, much to everyone's disgust.

"When's she turning up?" Jane asks Sharon, ignoring him.

"Three days’ time," Sharon replies. "So Barton, move your shit out of Carol's old room."

Clint huffs and Natasha elbows him. He's never going to get his own archery range at this rate.

 

Other than Steve, Clint shares their house with Tony, an engineering PhD student on his _second_ PhD, and Thor, who has a sport scholarship but is nothing like the kind of person you imagine when you think 'sport scholarship'. Which Clint is thankful for, because he'd probably want to punch someone like that. It's a typical guy house made worse by the fact that it's small, Thor has a lot of gym stuff, and Tony enjoys blowing things up.

Also Tony lets his friend Bruce grow strange things in their fridge because ‘Science Barton!’

It’s why Natasha insists Clint comes over to hers when they're hanging out. In fact, Clint spends a lot of time at Natasha's.

 

"This is Peggy," Sharon says from behind more boxes than is sensible to be carrying. "Peggy, this is Natasha. And I can't see, but it's probably Clint too."

"How did you know?" Clint fake gasps, while Natasha gets up to help with the boxes.

Sharon's head appears as Natasha removes a box. "You and Natasha are practically married. You're always here."

"I take exception to that," Natasha says mildly, dropping Sharon's box onto Clint's lap and making him groan. "He's a terrible person. I'd never marry him."

"You wound me," Clint moans and then when that garners no reaction; "No really, I think you crushed my – "

"Okay," Sharon interjects quickly. "Peggy, through here. Barton, get boxes."

Peggy is also carrying too many boxes to be sensible, but her hair is beautiful and her lipstick is very red. She looks like she'd hurt him if he offered to take any of the boxes she’s carrying. 

Clint decides he likes her.

 

"Invite your awful frat house over," Natasha says as soon as he picks up his phone. "I'm cooking for everyone so people can meet Peggy."

"That's like twenty people," he says, frowning as he tries to pour coffee while simultaneously highlighting half the page in front of him.

"Are you saying I can't do it?"

"Fuck no," Clint says immediately. In his experience, Natasha can do anything. "Do you want a hand?"

"Are you saying _you_ can cook for twenty people?"

Clint snorts. "No, just being polite."

"Well don't. We all know where your limits are."

"Harsh."

"But fair. Bring beer."

Natasha hangs up on him before he can say anything more. God, but he loves that woman.

 

Half-way through the dinner that night, Clint observes a curious thing; namely, Steve gazing in wonder at Peggy when she's not looking. Of course, Steve has probably known Peggy for the grand total of five minutes, but Steve is made of sunshine and happiness and the belief in love at first sight (when he's not made up of stubbornness and righteous anger and the overwhelming desire to punch douchebags) so that little fact isn't so strange, all things considered.

The interesting thing is that the last person he looked at like that was Sharon. It seems Steve has a thing for Carters.

"Observe," he says, leaning over to the closest available person, who turns out to be Pepper, "the Steve Rogers courtship dance."

"Huh?" 

Pepper turns from her conversation with Thor and Bruce to look over at Steve. She raises her eyebrow. "Interesting," she says eventually, in that vaguely scheming way that Clint has learnt to fear when directed at him. "How long is she here for again?"

"Just the semester."

"Do you reckon we'll need to do a Sharon, or will he work this one out for himself?"

Clint thinks back to Peggy’s expression when she first moved in.

"If she's interested,” Clint says decisively, “she'll initiate."

Pepper snorts, a fantastically inelegant sound. "Everyone is interested in Steve."

Clint raises an eyebrow. He's not as good at it as Natasha.

"What?" says Pepper, not even defensively. "I have eyes." 

 

"She's going to be in my Military History and Conflict Resolution classes," Steve says, while kicking Clint's ass at Madden. Because he's a bastard and can multitask. "So I offered to, you know, give her the low down. Phillips is a hard ass but fair, Hodge is a dick. That kind of thing."

Clint swears and throws his controller down in defeat. "Doesn't sound like you need a meet up for that," he notes. "You explained it to me pretty well just then."

Clint side-eyes Steve, who is stubbornly refusing to look at him.

"You going to lend her your notes, Rogers?" he says slyly.

"Shut up, Barton."

 

"So what's Peggy like to live with?" Clint asks, panting slightly with Natasha naked on top of him.

"You're the worst at pillow talk," she says. 

Clint shrugs. She says that every time, but she hasn't stopped sleeping with him yet so he figures it's fine.

"So?"

Natasha sighs. "Jane said she's like what would happen if me and Pepper had a love child."

Clint loses his train for thought for a while. "If that ever happens, you'll let me know, right?"

"It's biologically impossible," Natasha says, shifting until she's tucked under his chin. "Also, mine and Pepper's love is pure and true. You'd just sully it."

"I hate you," Clint says, lacking heat.

Natasha kisses his chest. "I know you do. What do you want to know?"

"Steve has a write-our-initials-in-hearts crush on her," Clint replies, because Natasha was going to find out anyway and Steve is anything but subtle. Plus Peggy seems cool. Steve deserves someone awesome.

"Does he now?"

Natasha loves setting Steve up.

"He's lending her his notes and everything."

Natasha lifts her head enough to give Clint an incredulous look. "He is not."

"No," Clint admits, "he's not."

Steve is never that rubbish. To be honest, Steve isn't rubbish at all. Ladies love Steve. Sometimes he just needs prodding.

"He's meeting up with her to warn her about the various and sundry ways in which Hodge is a douchebag."

Natasha snorts. "Romantic."

Clint shrugs. "Worked for me."

"You," Natasha reminds him, "punched a guy for not leaving me alone. And then I punched  _you_."

"Love at first sight," Clint says, nodding sagely. He's not even lying.

"You're touched in the head."

“That too.”

 

Clint starts paying more attention to Steve after that. Because yeah, he might give him shit and get him into the most ridiculous situations, but Steve is basically his best friend (after Natasha obviously) and Clint is totally willing to help out if he needs it.

Wants. That should be ‘wants’.

Clint’s sticking with ‘needs’ though. He’s not going to stop being a shit just because Steve’s crushing on a super attractive and intelligent British chick.

What Clint works out is that Steve is way more into Peggy than he was with Sharon – something Clint is fairly sure Sharon finds hilarious. And that’s great; apart from how it means that Steve tends to turn very red when he’s doing anything but having serious conversations about the Middle East and drone strikes and asylum seekers with her. (And this is what Clint gets for being friends almost exclusively with military historians and people studying international relations.)

Though it’s also pretty cute to watch them do that (at least, according to Pepper and Jane). Steve gets his righteous face on and Peggy has a Serious Topic Frown that is kind of hot.

 

“We need a plan,” Pepper says one evening.

Clint is over at Natasha's (again) because Tony allowed Bruce to grow something funky in their fridge and then Tony accidentally set the couch on fire.

They are so not getting their deposit back on that place.

“For what?” Jane asks.

“Peggy and Steve.”

“I don’t think we do,” Natasha says from where her head is in his lap. They’ve taken over the whole, blessedly fire free, couch. Mostly _because_ it’s not on fire. “Peggy’ll ask him out soon.”

“Peggy thinks it’s a bad idea,” Sharon interjects from where she’s building a card tower at the table. “She’s going back in a month, long distance is hard, yadda yadda.”

Clint looks down at Natasha, then around the room at each of the other women in turn.

“We totally need a plan,” he says, and everyone nods.

 

“So,” Clint asks Peggy a couple of days later. “What’s the worst thing about being over here?”

Peggy gives him a look he usually only gets from Natasha. It’s the ‘you’re fucking kidding me with this shit, right?’ look.

“There’s got to be something,” Clint presses. “I can think up a pretty long list off the top of my head and I’m supposed to be all FUCK YEAH MURICA.”

“Why ‘supposed to be’?” Peggy asks, instead of answering the question.

“I’m from Iowa. All hail the conservative flyover states! Or something.”

Peggy opens her mouth to say something, then frowns and doesn’t.

“Your tea is shit,” she says after a moment.

“Tinged with a tang of Boston Harbour?” Clint guesses.

“You’re really not funny,” she says, but she’s smiling.

“I’m American. Our’s is a subtler humour.”

“Yeah,” she says, bumping his shoulder before turning to leave. It’s not a gesture he’d’ve guessed from her, but it’s nice. “You keep telling yourself that.”

“Denial is also an American trait!” He calls after her.

“Yeah, we’ve all noticed!”

 

Clint Googles ‘British tea’.

Then he Googles tea places in New York, does some collating of information, sends the results to his friend Jess – the only other British person he knows – for verification and then dumps all the information into Steve’s lap.

“Woo your ladyfriend with tea,” he says.

“I’m working. Also, what ladyfriend?”

Clint rolls his eyes. “Don’t be dumb.”

 

“That is a terrible plan,” Pepper says later that night, when Clint relays his cunning plan to Natasha's housemates.

Clint huffs, affronted.

“We’ve voted for dancing and dares,” Natasha says.

“As in..?” Clint says leadingly. Because that sounds like an equally shit plan to him.

“As in,” Natasha says, “We go dancing, and we dare Steve to ask her to dance, and then _you_ imply he’s rubbish when he turns down the dare so he’ll do it anyway.”

“Darcy has come up with a list of appropriate places to go,” Jane says.

“And Sam has made a playlist,” Sharon adds.

“You’ve been scheming without me,” Clint says, pouting.

“It’s better this way,” Natasha says, patting him consolingly on the arm.

“Has anyone done anything about the fact that Peggy doesn’t want to start anything because ‘long distance blah blah blah’?” Clint asks. And sure, Clint’s plan didn’t have this component – but then again, he’s not any of these scarily competent women.

Plus, he admits, his plan was shit. Though he did learn a lot about tea.

“We chatted,” Sharon says. “I told her she’s being stupid and Steve is a total sweetheart. Said she might as well give it a shot and that, despite appearances, Steve is a fantastic lay. It’s a good way to get Peggy into someone.”

Everyone turns to look at Sharon.

“What?”

“Isn’t it weird to be setting your cousin up with your ex-boyfriend?” Jane asks.

“She’s more like a friend than my cousin really,” Sharon replies. “We didn’t meet properly until we were like fifteen. And Steve is more like a friend than an ex. I’m just setting up friends with friends. Plus, you’ve met Antoine right? I am totally cool with my ex dating my cousin when I get to have _that_.”

Everyone but Clint nods sagely. Clint likes Antoine and Sharon, but he doesn’t really want to think about either of them naked.

Not that that was the point of that little speech.

 

Clint gets stuck with trying to get Steve to go out with them, which is probably the harder of the two jobs. (The other being getting Peggy to go out with them, which he’s sure was achieved by saying ‘hey Peggy, come out dancing with us’. Those guys have it _so easy_.)

“C’mon,” Clint whines. “Everyone is going out. Even _Bruce_. And you know how Bruce feels about dancing.”

“Yeah, it’s basically what I feel about dancing,” Steve replies, not moving.

“I’ll have to resort to extreme measures!” Clint warns, but Steve just rolls his eyes.

Sucks to be Steve though, because Pepper & Co. do their planning properly and Clint has his ‘extreme measures’ all worked out.

Clint lunges for Steve’s phone and hits three before Steve can react and Bucky picks up on the first ring because Pepper and Natasha had threatened bodily harm if he wasn’t near the phone when they needed him. Threats of bodily harm from either of them are always to be taken seriously, even if Bucky is in Afghanistan right now.

“Bucky!” Clint says, fumbling for speakerphone as Steve’s eyes widen and he lunges at Clint. “Stevie won’t go out dancing with us! There’ll be beautiful girls! There will be alcohol! There will be merrymaking!”

“Beautiful girls, you say?” Bucky replies dramatically and _yes,_ Clint can always rely on Bucky. “Stevie! There will be beautiful girls! You must go! For all of us here that are bereft of beautiful girls – !” Bucky yelps down the phone suddenly and mutters “Christ Hill, your elbows are pointy,” just as Steve manages to wrestle his phone from Clint.

“Okay Bucky! Thanks! Bye!” he yells quickly, before Clint can grab the phone back from him.

“Beautiful girls, Stevie! I dare you – !” Bucky’s voice is cut off abruptly as Steve hangs up.

“I cannot believe you wasted a satellite link-up with Bucky for _this_.”

“Just ‘cause you’re a chicken.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

Steve narrows his eyes at him and Clint knows he’s won.

“Fine,” Steve snaps and storms into his room.

“Natasha says wear your Levis!” Clint yells at his retreating back.

“Steve says fuck you!” Steve yells back.

 

Steve wears his Levis and Natasha proudly nudges Clint to point out the appreciative once-over Peggy gives him as a result.

 

The bassline to Horny by Mousse T blares through the club and Clint follows in Natasha's wake until she finds Sam.

“You’re fucking kidding me with this shit,” she yells over the music.

“What?” Sam yells back. “It’s a 90s classic!”

“Please tell me you have better songs than this!”

“Also,” adds Clint, “how did you get this place to _play_ this shit?” Not that Clint thinks it’s shit. To be honest, he thinks it’s kind of hilarious. But Peggy is looking unimpressed and Steve is rolling his eyes and Pepper looks like she’s going to _murder_ Sam so hey, it’s a valid question.

“I have contacts,” Sam yells smugly. Because that is a thing Sam can do. “Also, of course I do. I’m not actually a moron.”

Natasha rolls her eyes, but then a Beyonce song starts up and she gives Sam an appreciative nod before dragging Clint onto the dancefloor, despite the fact that Clint is sort of a disaster when it comes to dancing. Like, _he_ doesn’t care, but Natasha usually laughs at him. Not that he really minds that either.

Mostly Sam’s song choices veer between being epic and horrendously cheesy and Clint can see that Natasha spends half her time wanting to yell at him. But Clint has a feeling Sam is just lulling everyone into some sort of false sense of security because then Uptown Funk starts up and Sam’s smirking something terrifying while Natasha _drags_ Clint towards Pepper and the girls.

It takes Clint a moment to work out why Natasha felt the sudden need _now_ to start paying attention to what the girls were doing but then he gets it; Peggy is dancing with Sharon and Jane, yelling ‘HOT DAMN’ and shimmying at all the right moments, and from the bar Steve is trying really, _really_ hard not to stare too much.

Only, Steve’s also being chatted up by a blonde women with a permanent smirk (not a bad thing, just noticeable) and when he’s not staring at Peggy, Peggy is side-eyeing that woman like nobody’s business.

“Nope!” Clint exclaims suddenly, dropping his hands from around Natasha's waist. “Not happening.”

He dodges around several people, weaving and ducking until he’s beside Steve. “Sorry, darlin’,” he says to the blonde woman. “I just gotta borrow this guy for a second.”

He yanks Steve off his barstool and whirls him around, pushing him into Peggy’s little circle of dancers just as they’re yelling ‘TOO HOT’ in time with the music.

Clint _sees_ Peggy’s ‘hot damn’ die in her throat as Steve suddenly appears three inches from her face, expression so startled that he can’t even look embarrassed.

“Girls hit your hallelujah!” Pepper, Sharon and Jane sing in their direction, and Natasha joins them just in time to hit the ‘Woo!’ perfectly before shoving Steve hard enough he has to catch Peggy’s shoulders, or else fall over.

In terms of timing, it’s pretty perfect, but there’s a good minute of the song left, so Clint grabs Tony and Bruce and Sam and literally everyone else of their group who’s within grabbing distance to create some kind of impenetrable dancing circle _thing_ around them to ensure neither of them bolt.

And then Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen starts up and Clint fucking _whoops_ and Natasha hugs Sam, apparently all terrible song choices forgiven because Steve has his hands tentatively curled around Peggy’s hips. There’s a brief moment where neither of them move and everyone else has to dance as if they’re not _horribly invested_ in what’s going on, but then Steve says something – it’s too loud to tell what it is, but Clint thinks it might be ‘can I?’ – and Peggy cuts him off by kissing him firmly on the mouth.

Pepper actually fist-pumps before the entire group pointedly start dancing again, (mostly) ignoring Steve and Peggy making out in their midst.

Clint does catch the eye of the smirking girl who was chatting up Steve earlier though. He pulls a ‘sorry about that’ face and she shrugs before pointing behind him and raising her eyebrow. Clint turns to see Sam dancing enthusiastically with Thor and Clint shrugs before grabbing Sam’s wrist and propelling him towards Smirking Girl, who gives him the thumbs up.

And then Queen morphs into some remix of Seven Nation Army, because Sam’s taste in music is best described as ‘eclectic’, but it’s somehow sexy as fuck and Clint stops caring about Steve and Peggy because Natasha has plastered herself to his front again.

 

(Though he starts caring again when they leave and Peggy has texted Sharon to say _For the record fuck you all. Also fyi we’re back at mine, sucks to be you._ Which means Clint and Natasha can’t have nasty, loud sex at his place because they have to put _everyone_ up for the night.)

 

That Christmas Clint and Natasha buy Steve a t-shirt saying ‘Mister Fahrenheit’ on it and Peggy one saying ‘Super Sonic Woman’.

Clint photographs Steve’s epic bitchface and saves the snapchat Peggy sends of her giving them the finger and proudly sticks them both on the fridge in his and Natasha's new place, which is blessedly free of small fires, experiments in the fridge, or anyone likely to complain about nasty, loud sex.

 

Three years later and Clint texts Steve saying _I dare you to ask her to marry you_.

Steve texts back saying _way ahead of you buddy_.

**Author's Note:**

>   
> [Horny by Mousse T](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGkHc11kSKs) | [Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPf0YbXqDm0) | [Don't Stop Me Now by Queen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzGwKwLmgM)  
> [Seven Nation Army (Glitch Mob Remix) by The White Stripes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m7e7tCn7Bk)  
> 


End file.
